Is The Same Bicycling Arsonist Responsible For Four East Bay Construction Fires?

Three fires in the last year, all at partially completed residential construction sites in Oakland and Emeryville, have all been ruled as acts of arson, and a fourth, which occurred in the early morning hours of Friday, seems likely to have been an act of arson as well. As the Chronicle reports, this latest inferno, which has temporarily displaced upwards of 700 people, appears to fit a pattern of deliberately set fires at partially completed buildings, including a pair of fires at the same site on the Oakland-Emeryville border in less than a year.

The question now is whether the same suspect could be responsible for all four of these fires  and the Chronicle also brings up a 2012 construction site fire at a senior housing complex in Oakland, suggesting a connection there.

Developer Rick Holliday, who's been building (and rebuilding) The Interval now for several years, said in May that this "feels like a war on housing in the East Bay," and he's not wrong.